Battle Vixens! - 118

First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Episode 118: Calm Before

Warp noticed Dawn sitting alone in the cafeteria, a tray of empty dishes that used to contain breakfast on the table in front of her. She teleported to just outside of the tall vixen's view and walked up on the opposite side of the table. "Oi, guard pup. Where'd your master go?"

She sat up slightly, looking confused. "Huh?"

"Cynthia?"
"Oh...she's uh, went to therapy...after breakfast. Said she had some stuff to unpack...alone." Dawn's ears drooped, and she slumped down again, especially on this last word.

Warp sat down, leaning in slightly to force their eyes to meet. "Really? I thought if anyone was cracked in the head, it'd be you. Especially after yesterday."

Dawn looked away. "...Sorry."

"Hey, 'sorry' won't keep me alive." Warp hit the table with a fist, just hard enough to make the silverware on Dawn's tray jingle. "I'm used to working with—more often for—unstable people, but that's not really what I expect out of this job."

Dawn jumped at the noise, then folded her ears back, looking briefly alive again—getting a flash of anger. "I ain't usually like that! It was—just—too much. All at once, and she—..." A few tears appeared in her face, and she slumped and looked away again.

Warp sighed; this wasn't going much of anywhere. "Look, I really don't care about the finer points. I'm plenty happy to stay out of everyone else's business except when it nearly gets me killed again. So I'll just tell you this, as free advice: No matter how much you care about her, look after yourself first. You can't protect anyone in the state you were in yesterday."

Since Dawn didn't respond verbally to this, she shook her head and stood up, not giving the courtesy of walking out of sight before teleporting herself away. She'd have to think of some other way to deal with this. One way or another, she was not going to have a repeat of yesterday's near-death experience. After all, the whole point of this endeavor was to get herself a little farther away from death.

---

After breakfast, Blake drove into town, parked, and found somewhere to shift forms and be Light. She thought through Ning's location at the new location of her store, and Rory's at her house, and so settled on a park roughly halfway between the two—posting herself so that she could respond to an attack an either direction. More specifically, she found a bench to sit and wait on. She was invisible, but this bench was rather out of the way, and the park had barely any people in it right now to begin with...so the risk of someone else wanting the bench and nearly sitting on her was very low.

Being able to sit down and lean back while she waited was a bonus. It wasn't raining yet, but the sky was overcast, and she could easily feel the difference between the bright daytime sun she was used to having charge her up during battle and how the cloud-dimmed light right now felt. She was going to have to hold back on fighting, focus on illusions—which mostly felt low-cost and effortless—but, as she'd assured her roommate that morning, it shouldn't be too difficult to do that.

What she wasn't expecting was a call about midway into the stakeout. She got out her phone in a brief panic that someone might hear it ringing from an apparently unoccupied bench and come looking to see if someone was missing a phone. Initially she was planning to just reject the call and put the thing on silent, but then saw who was actually calling: Lift, of the "No Evil" team, through the VI app. What did that mean? Did that team need help or something? That thought alone meant she couldn't just ignore it, so she quickly answered instead.

"Yoo, Light, how ya doin'?"
"Uh..okay. Is something wrong?"
"Huh? No, nah, not unless being temporarily bored counts. I just thought I'd check on our neighboring team's leader, is all, since it sounds like today's gonna be pretty rough."
"I'm not—"
"I know, I know, you don't give commands or whatever. But you're still, like, the 'leader' morally speaking. As in, it's you who inspires everyone around you to fight—that much is obvious."
"I guess.." She sighed, not really wanting to argue about this point.

"Hey, hey—are you holding up okay, though? You sound kinda tired, and I guess the weather can't be good for your powers, right?"
"I'm..I'll be all right," Light said, trying not to let the worry that a nearly-complete stranger already seemed to know her powerset's most fundamental weakness. "I know my limits."

"Good, good. Just—you know—we owe y'all one, or maybe like six, so gimme a call if you need a hand. We'll do what we can, send someone over maybe."
Light semi-unconsciously shook her head. "I..couldn't ask you to do that, when it's as dangerous where you are as it is here."

"Hahah, we'll see. Anyway, best of luck out there today! Fight well and all that. Whoop, I got another call comin'!" With that, Lift abruptly hung up again.

Light stared at her phone for a moment after that, the free hand scratching one of her ears. What had that been about, really?

---

"'Limited combat usefulness', wasn't it?" Rowan had been asked to help the research team's efforts by going to one of the VI's unoccupied courtyards, in vixen form, to spar with Hephaestus. She was actually there ahead of Rowan, and had an impatient, annoyed expression on. "Have you changed your mind about that?"

"I have not." She sighed, drawing out a pair of blades into her hands. "I abhor violence in the first place. This was entirely Ezekiel's idea, and he would not shut up about it. He claims that we need 'a better grasp of the scope of my powers, especially against a magic-wielding opponent'. I would prefer to have this over with as quickly as possible."

Rowan nodded. "Moving on to the next thing on my schedule is a priority for me, also. How should I fight, then?"
The small, mostly-white-haired vixen visibly paused to consider, then said, "If you form limbs with water to restrain me, the fight will be over without having gained any useful data. I would not survive an encounter with your 'dragon form', either. So—use your magic for projectiles only, and your weapon freely. As you would have fought before you gained the 'full use' of your powers."

"I'll still be cautious not to hurt you," Rowan said, moving to a ready stance.

"I appreciate that, but note that I lack the experience to guarantee that I can do the same."

"Understood."

Both of them stood quietly apart from each other, each waiting for her opponent to make the first move. Heph's stance was loose, almost relaxed, and to an unaware observer it might not appear that they were fighting at all. Rowan eventually decided to try to create an opening, making a small blade of water form to her opponent's left without moving her hands. Her expectation was that Heph would either see or hear it just in time to block, and leave an opening; instead, she seemed to react before the blade had even fully formed, swinging her blades in quick succession in that direction to 'cut open' the space there and make a portal whose other end was a few inches behind Rowan. While the blade's momentum carried it through the portal, she was easily able to let go of it so that it splashed down as harmless water before reaching her.

Anyway, by then she had already moved forward in an attempt to capitalize on the expected opening. Her blade swept forward and met one of Heph's, so she let go of it, reforming it in the other hand and swinging from a different direction, meeting the other blade. By then, her opponent was parrying the first blow, recovering quickly into a chop. She turned aside of that swing, letting go of her weapon again in the process, and formed several more water blades surrounding Hephaestus.

Again, Rowan expected one thing and got another: Instead of attempting to press forward and capitalize on the advantage of blocking her blows, the small vixen hopped back out of the path of the new set of blades, using her weapons instead to cut open a portal and immediately leap through it. Again, it was like she knew where they'd be before they had even formed.

It was mostly Rowan's instincts that saved her, prompting her to dive to one side as Hephaestus came upon her from above and behind swords-first. She was left rolling briefly before hopping back to her feet, raising her blade to try to block a follow-up swing from one of Heph's blades, then quickly swapping her weapon to the other hand to block the other blade.

From here, they went through a rapid dance of strikes and blocks, with Rowan mostly on the receiving end. Hephasestus was fast, agile, and her use of her swords was ideal: Precise, calculated strikes with no overcommitments, no wasted energy, and very little in the way of openings between them. Even though she was constantly trading her weapon back and forth between her hands, and Heph—while she probably could do something like that—wasn't, not being able to have two weapons physically present at once still made it harder to keep up. But the thing that seemed to tip her over into being at a real disadvantage was that Heph always seemed to see her tricks coming—she seemed to know when Rowan was swapping hands, and no amount of changing up her timing appeared to be enough to fool her.

The one thing that tended to save Rowan in situations like this was her ability to think while her body did the fighting. Hephaestus's main stated power, besides the portals, was the ability to 'see' magic. That had to be what she was doing—she could see Rowan's powers having an effect on the water vapor in the air before she'd really achieved anything with them, and she could see the sword about to be summoned before it was fully there. The only way to get around an advantage like this...was to turn it against her.

Rowan began forming some low-effort, harmless bubbles of water behind her opponent, to no effect. She repeated this a few degrees up at a time until they were just enough in Hephaestus's peripheral vision for her to react—expecting a blade, she hopped back, and when Rowan made more bubbles appear in front of her in an arc, she drew her blades and slashed the air to make a portal once again, jumping through it.

It was impossible to know exactly which direction the other end of that portal was going, except that it couldn't be anywhere Rowan could see right now—so right in front of her was the safest. She sprinted forward several steps, waving her hand behind her to form about ten spinning water-blades in some random locations and orientations back there. When Heph dove down out of her portal, she had to drop her weapons and twist around in the air to avoid being cut by some of them, and one still managed to scratch her arm. She rolled forward along the ground, and recovered only to a kneeling position, Rowan having already turned around with her weapon drawn, the tip of the blade down in her direction.

"Enough, I yield."

Rowan nodded, letting go of and dismissing her blade, then offering the same hand down toward Dr. Brand to help her up. "As much as it may pain you to hear this, Ezekiel was correct. Your power does give you a significant advantage, at least in a fight against a vixen."

"I suppose so." She took the assistance, then quickly dusted herself off.

"You also have a great deal of agility and manevuerability, and strong instincts for using your weapons, but—tactically speaking—allowing yourself to rely too much on 'seeing attacks coming' that way is dangerous."

Heph nodded. "I would not be able to use that 'sight' against typical monsters anyway. Only those who have swallowed an empowered would have anything for me to 'see'."

"However, being able to open portals is useful in a variety of ways. If we find ourselves in a situation where you have no choice but to participate in combat—please keep their use of getting yourself and others out of danger at the forefront of your mind."

"Of course.

"At any rate...I must get back to my real job now."
"And I to mine. I hope this has been helpful."
"Right. Should at least get Ezekiel off my back." She turned and left.

As much as she complained, Rowan thought, Dr. Brand wouldn't have agreed to do this just because Dr. Bridges was annoying him. He presented a sour disposition most of the time, but it was clear that they trusted each other quite a bit for having only met a couple of weeks ago.

On his way back through the building, Warp came walking up to him. "What's wrong?" he asked, figuring it had to be something serious for her to not attempt to startle him by teleporting to two feet from his face again—or maybe she'd given up on it, since it hadn't worked the last several times she'd tried.

"Listen. I don't want to work with Cynthia or Dawn today. Anyone else but them."
"Sure," he said first, and then after an appropriately long pause: "Can I ask why?"

She crossed her arms. "I think they're both pretty close to falling apart—Dawn much more so, but she'll drag that other girl down with her. I can't trust folks in that kind of mental condition to not stab me in the back—much less to watch it. Even if it's not as bad as all that, I've got no interest in especially risking my life for other people's drama."

Rowan nodded. "Maybe I'll put you with Hugo or Nico, then—they're both pretty stable. But you do understand that if we have to fight something big, they'll be there with everyone else."

"'Course. I don't want to be unreasonable," she said.
"Anyway, thanks for letting me know...I'll keep an eye on the two of them myself."
Warp nodded. "Best of luck with that, then."

---

Emma noticed Marcus in the hallway between a couple of her morning classes, and waved him over. He ran up after a moment. "Yo!"

"Hey. Um, are you..okay? You know—" her voice went under her breath "—after yesterday and stuff?"
"Uh, yeah, I'm great. I ate a lot and slept pretty much forever, so..I feel pretty good."
"Did your—you have a roommate?"
"Uh-huh?"
"Did he uh..get suspicious of you sleeping a lot?"
"Uhhh, nnooo, not at all," he said. Even Emma could tell he wasn't being entirely honest, but it seemed like if it was a real problem he'd say so. And—she wasn't up to confronting someone about something like that anyway.
"Okay, good. Uhmm..stay on your toes, I guess?" She was kind of the 'more senior superhero' or whatever, and so felt an urge to say something vaguely like that, even as awkwardly as it came out.
"Yeah, always! See ya!" He waved, running off.

---

Simon held his hands in front of his face, making a rectangle with his thumbs and index fingers to look through. "Annd...there, that's perfect! Have her stand still, just like that." Remedy was in his 'frame', and an easel with a canvas on it was between them.

Karis was still in fox-form, sitting down off to one side. "Oh, so you don't want her to kick a leg up in the air, or do a handstand?"

"Only if you want a painting of that."

She pretended to seriously consider it, and then said "Nah." So Simon got to work starting his painting.

"So—what was this big meeting about? Secret stuff, ooorrrr...?"

Simon signed annoyedly. "No, it was mostly soon-to-be-publicly-available information that also could've fit in an email."

Karis gave him a savage grin for that. "Yess, feel my pain!"

He just shook his head, but then he noticed—Remedy seemed to be smiling a bit, too. "Hey, did you tell her to smile?" he asked, pointing. Karis turned to look.

"No, I didn't. Huh." Remedy's expression turned more neutral, but her head tilted ever so slightly to one side.

"Well—I'll have to ask you to keep her from moving her head around like that once I get to the details," he said.

"Anyway, they've classified the monsters into four levels—starting at zero, no doubt because a programmer was involved—to give anyone checking the wiki a quick impression of how big, bad, and dangerous the monster of the day is. You ask me, they should've gone with at least twenty levels. And, there was something about them being on a logarithmic scale," he added with a slight dismissive wave of his free hand.

"Ooh, a log scale! Tell me more."

"Pfft, just that that's how they separate the four so-called 'classes'," he said. "I don't feel like I have to get it to understand that a higher class is a bigger problem."

"But still! This is an amazing opportunity for me to get my kids actually excited about statistics for once. And logarithms! 'Look, we use these to help superheroes fight!' Isn't that great?"

"Well, if it makes you happy," Simon shrugged.

After a moment of silence, his wife said, "Hey. Soo...are you uh, over what happened yesterday? With me, getting hurt and all?"
"You survived, and got healed. So there's nothing to worry about," he said.

"Uh-huuh. So you're not just putting on a brave front for me? Or—for yourself, more like?"
"Now why would I go and do that?" he asked cheerfully.

"Well, I don't think I'm over it," she admitted. "At the time, it—happened so fast, I don't think my brain had any time to process it. And then I was distracted enough by other things, for long enough, that I could put it on hold. But, now that I have time, it feels like it's playing catch-up. I really almost died," she said, quietly.

At this, Simon paused his work, turning his body to face her. His wife's expression really was a bit distressed, with her ears folded down on top of that. "Now, come on, it really isn't like you—isn't like either of us—to dwell on these things. We almost died back when Rowan and Dawn saved us from those pig-things too, didn't we?"

"Yeah, I guess so. It's something else when you get actually mortally wounded, though. I think I know exactly what people crushed under a collapsed building feel before they die, and by definition, most everyone alive doesn't."

"Well—I'm happy to help you unpack that if you want, even though I'm not very good at it," he said. "But the VI has therapists on call too, for obvious enough reasons."
"Hey—admitting you're no good at something?" she said, perking up. "Now that's unlike you, heheh!"

"Well, I certainly can't be perfect at everything," Simon said, "that'd be boring. No contrast to display my genius against."

"Theeere it is. Well, maybe I'll take one of those offers up sometime, if I feel like I need it. I probably—just need to sort through it myself, for now, though. But—you know, I'm here for you too, for the same thing, if you need it."

"...Sure. Thanks."

The painter went back to his work. He hoped to finish before the first wave of monsters showed up today, after all.

Battle Vixens! - 117

First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Episode 117: Forecast

Light could feel the rays of the early sunrise coming in through the cracks in the windows. It was still strange—it wasn't that she could feel warmth, nor see any of the light through her eyelids; it was simply the light itself that entered her perception. Amory didn't seem to be up yet, or at least hadn't turned on the TV, but her ears could pick up the radios of their neighors:

"...cold front coming in, we can expect scattered showers all day, and some severe thunderstorms in the late afternoon..."
"...shocking announcement that after yesterday's onslaught, there will be three attacks today. We reached out to the Initiative for comment..."

She groaned quietly, turning over to shove her face into the pillow. It was going to be a bad day.

---

Thad had some strange questions to ask himself during his early-morning run.

He was thinking back to the night before. After his roommate, in adorable fox-girl form, had fallen asleep—she, a catgirl at the time, hadn't felt right moving enough to risk wake her...especially with her arm around Thad's waist in a light half-hug, and her head resting on her shoulder. She'd just quietly returned the hug and enjoyed things for a while without thinking about it too much—at least until, nearly an hour later, she had the strange sensation of her body starting to reverse its transformation.

It was this bizarre feeling, like something she hadn't realized she was stretching out was getting tired and needed to withdraw itself. She'd already lost a bit of size to her chest, and grown an inch or so in height, when she realized it, and then she sort of pulled back against that feeling, which seemed to slow the change—but the return to her usual look was inevitable. She just wanted to carefully get Magus off of her, and her head onto a pillow, so she wouldn't wake up hugging a dude. It just—wasn't something she wanted to do to her roommate. After that, she scooted over to the far side of the couch and 'let go', and nearly instantly changed all the way back, losing the tail and big furry ears just as swiftly as they'd appeared.

He didn't wake her up until the food had arrived—or, really, it was more accurate to say that the smell of the food woke her up. Marcus was quick to change back, and seemed slightly awkward and embarrassed the whole meal, hurrying back to his room to go back to sleep on an actual bed as soon as he was full.

Thad had never disliked his looks. No, that wasn't it—he'd always loved his looks. He worked very hard to maintain them, after all, and he loved it when girls looked upon him with appreciation, and other guys with jealousy. Being a fit jock was decidedly a part of his identity, just as much as being a car buff and amatuer mechanic, always taking good care of his baby ever since he'd first gotten it. So...why had he enjoyed being a soft, literally fluffy girl so much? It was a lot of new sensations that should've been nothing short of bizarre and disorienting, but in the moment she'd simply felt like it was..easy, natural, and even relaxing in a strange sort of way. She'd liked having..the kind of body Thad himself didn't really enjoy on girls; something about it simply felt nice. Of course Marcus had admitted to liking busty girls—not that that was any surprise anyway—but Thad's enjoyment was definitely from more than just making the cute fox-girl blush.

And it had been with a profound sense of disappointment that he'd let that look go. Even if Magus could turn him back, it didn't feel entirely right to make her do that. Not if she had to exhaust herself to do it; not if she felt even more awkward around Thad than before as a result. It was frustrating to want something and not fully understand why, and it was even more frustrating to know he could have it practically any time, but also that it wouldn't really be right.

So...what was he going to do about this? The easiest, safest option was to do nothing: Don't make Magus turn him into a catgirl again, and try to ease things back to relative normalcy with his roommate. That was sort of why he'd come up with the dumb idea in the first place, right? But...even though he liked how he was right now, and didn't want to get rid of it or anything, the idea of never being able to feel that way again...made him feel kind of sad. Besides that, it felt like he'd never fully understand even..why he wanted it in the first place, without being able to experience it again a couple more times.

He ran back to the apartment complex, deciding: He could at least do nothing for now, right? With even more monsters bearing down on them, the fox-girls—including his roommate—had enough on their plate without him adding to it. Maybe he could bring up the idea of her turning him back again when that plate was a lot closer to empty. Sure, it might be months or a year until then, but...whatever weird part of him wanted to be a catgirl at least didn't feel too impatient. As long as it was a reasonable possibility in the future...that felt like it was enough for now.

---

"I'm glad you decided to talk to me again. I admit, I didn't think we'd be doing a one-on-one so soon, though. You sure you're all right with this?"

Cynthia looked the woman in the eyes, and nodded. "Yeah. I know I'm screwed up in the head, anyway."
"Come on, that's not a healthy way to think about it at all. You've been through a lot in your life," she said. "These wounds take a long time to heal. To be honest, it's rare for them to go completely away. But every step you take to make things better is important, even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it hurts."

"Sure..."

She paused about as long as felt comfortable, then asked: "Well, is there anything specific you wanted to talk about to start off?"

"...Maybe...what do you think of Donny and me? From seein' us together and stuff? You, uh..you know what I'm askin'?"

"Sure, but...you might not want to hear my answer."
"I've had to hear and see a lotta things I didn't like lately," Cynthia said, gesturing her to go on.

"Well. I can't say too much for sure from just one meeting, after all. And I don't believe you two are doing each other any harm, necessarily. But I did see a few signs that your relationship could eventually hurt you—both of you—more than it helps. It seems to me that you both needed each other, just to survive, for such a long time that you have difficulty relating to others without her. And she seems to badly want to protect you—now, there's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but I'm afraid the need she feels is stronger than is really healthy. At worst, it might make her hurt people someday—including herself, or even you, without meaning to."

"You're right...I don't really wanna hear that."

After a long silence, Cynthia sighed. "Since I uh..came back to life or whatever. I been figuring out what she was up to since I, died. She had...was startin' to have a..life. Folks who cared about her, stuff she was doin' all on her own, you know? But then she went and basically, killed herself by fightin' that crazy woman all alone, I guess just so she could see me again, or have me be somethin' vaguely like alive. I..."

She paused, feeling some tears come out and a slight sniff come in. "I never wanted that! She oughta know I wouldn't want that for her!" Then she took in a slow, ragged deep breath, having felt her power lash out just slightly, enough to form some small wisps of flame in the nearby air and heat the air around her several degrees, and working to get a grip on it again. "I...I made her promise to take my power and do some good with it if...if anything happened to me. 'Cause, to make up for what she..what we did, when we first got our powers. But also I, I wanted her to live. Without me, holdin' her back anymore..."

"It's not fair to yourself to say you're holding her back," the woman replied kindly. "You can't take everything on your own shoulders, you know."

"I..I know. But I still feel like...since we both came back, she's been obsessed with just—protectin' me, and nothin' else. She's always, unless I tell her to go away, she just..follows me around like a lost puppy or somethin'. It ain't right, for her to act that way. I oughta be strong enough..I-I should be able to take care of myself."

"There's nothing wrong with letting other people support you. But you know telling me you feel that way won't do either of you all that much good, right?"
"Sure...I know. I just...I dunno if I'm ready. If I can get the right words out...to make her understand. It ain't that I don't like her, it's...it's just..."

"Just take your time. There's no hurry, right?"

---

It will strike three times today, each at least two hours apart. Don't allow this to discourage you; it has to get worse before it can get better. And don't forget to eat!

Emma lay on her side, staring at the message on her phone. It wasn't good news, sure, but it also wasn't nearly as abrupt as yesteday's announcement. There was something almost...warm and kind about those last couple of sentences, almost like...something Beryl might say.

Beryl, and not the Watcher.

She shook her head, hopping out of bed and 'stepping apart' to have four hands to make breakfast with. If the strange, immortal being who'd handed out superpowers was getting more emotionally invested in their survival, that could only be a good thing, right? That part about it getting worse before it got better, however, was not good. It sounded like something people said about incredibly dangerous diseases, or like...radiation sickness. Was this the worst it would get, or would it be even worse tomorrow? But they needed to get through today to even find out, of course, so—she wasn't going to let herself worry about that just yet.

Last night had been...fun. After meeting up with Amory and Light, they'd introduced her to several more vixens (and, of course, their powers), and she'd been able to help about half of them gain new insight into just what their magic was doing. Even the ones who already understood their abilities better than she could hope to seemed excited to see her imitating them, like they were proud to be helping her learn more. Or—maybe that was just how she interpreted their happy or encouraging expressions, because it was what she wanted to think.

Learning and using new powers was just as addictively fun as ever, but it still came with the bitter aftertaste of worry: What if they fall into the wrong hands? What if I get eaten again? What if Light turns evil someday? What if I turn evil?! She never felt like she had a good answer to any of those questions, so she had to just push these thoughts out of her mind—and only one of the more complicated 'culinary spells' from Beryl's books seemed to occupy enough of her double-mind to properly distract her. At least it looked like it would taste good, if she managed to make it halfway work.

---

Rowan had been invited to an early-morning meeting of an unusual combination from among the VI's various departments: Public relations and tactical support. It was less of a conference, and more of a direct presentation and announcement. Just as it was about to begin, Simon rushed in and took up a spot standing next to the door, looking very unhappy to have to be here so early—but, as second-in-command, it was important that he understood this information too. Then the person in charge stepped up to the front of the room, dimming the lights so the projector screen could be more easily seen, and the soft pre-meeting murmur quickly died down.

"Right. I don't want to use up too much of your time, so I'll get to the point.

"Since the Giver began using the wiki we already had ties with as a reference to identify the types of opponents the empowered would soon be facing, we've been working with them to make the top matter of the page for each 'species' as tactically-relevant and quickly-readable as possible. The primary new feature we wanted to make sure you are aware of is a 'classification system' which should enable a more rapid assessment of the estimated threat, and necessary level of response.

"Across the thousands of encounters we have access to data on, our tactical department has noticed an unusually strong correlation between a number of attributes: The amount of resilience a creature has, its capacity to cause death and destruction, the difficulty which empowered tend to have while fighting it...essentially, all of these things appear to be tied directly to the creature's overall 'mass'.

"The strange black mist which they appear to be made out of occurs in different concentrations in different creatures, and they generally lose that material when they are harmed—that much is obvious. It is clear that the amount of that material a creature is made of, therefore, determines how much punishment it can take before dissipating. But all of these other factors appear to be strongly enough correlated to the amount of this 'mass' present to justify classifying them quite broadly by entirely this metric. While, of course, the true amount of danger one of them poses depends heavily on the situation, this should again help to allocate resources wisely. In order to make the information digestible, we have collated all of the known types of creatures by estimated mass on a logarithmic scale, and separated them into a total of four classes so far...which means that each successive type is understood to be exponentially worse than the last.

"The weakest of the creatures we have termed 'Class 0'. These are generally too small to swallow anyone and become so-called 'nightmares', and also weak enough that a single one would likely be survivable by an ordinary, unempowered human, especially if he has a weapon handy. However, they have never to date appeared alone to enable anyone to test this theory. At any rate, examples of these include the small creatures that the dragon tends to spawn from itself, or the smaller individual members of the 'swarm' last Friday.

"A notch above that in threat level are 'Class 1'. Examples of these include the 'twins', gryphons, snakewolves, chargers, bashers..and so on. A single one is generally not an issue for a single empowered under ideal circumstances, but these also rarely appear alone lately—and circumstances are even more rarely ideal. Some of these are large enough to swallow an empowered, but in a few cases have they actually managed to do so. Next...

"'Class 2' creatures tend to be a significant threat all on their own, often requiring a few empowered apiece to take down. The 'shiva', 'razor lizards', and giant turtles are some local examples that come to mind. These are the ones that most often become 'nightmares', probably because they both appear more frequently than 'Class 3', and are more capable than 'Class 1'. A typical 'Class 2 nightmare' has a threat level comparable to a 'Class 3'. Also, the recent phenomenon of 'fused' creatures seems to tend to result in either multiple 'Class 1''s becoming a 'Class 2', or a 'Class 1' making a 'Class 2' even more dangerous.

"Finally, 'Class 3' creatures are the strongest we know of, the kind that can quickly level cities if left unchecked. These include hydras, dragons, gigaworms, hecatoncheries, and so on. Each one requires sigificant, sustained firepower to take down. Some of the creatures at this level can spawn 'Class 0' ones from their own bodies. It is often inadvisible for individual or even small teams of empowered to confront these head-on, rather than stalling them out and waiting for backup. While these have occasionally been observed to swallow empowered, they are already dangerous enough without doing so that a 'Class 3' becoming a 'nightmare' is still not enough—statistically speaking—to warrant a higher classification."

"Apart from that announcement—since it pertains to the wiki site, we would also like to make everyone here aware of something...strange. Since it is playing an increasingly important role in tactical support, the VI has been working with data companies to secure and allocate more server space to the wiki, but some of the sharpest bursts of activity, typically just as attacks in multiple locations are simultaneously announced...should be too much for it, enough to act as an unintentional denial-of-service attack. I say 'should', because the servers have been observed to behave in what our IT department has called an 'anomalous' fashion during these times, with the load on the servers abruptly dropping to near-zero when the site reports the highest number of hits, despite the site remaining fully online. Despite some extensive efforts to track down the source of this phenomenon, no real progress has been made...aside from the suggestion that 'maybe the Giver did it', if that counts."

---

"Look.." Rory was at breakfast with her husband; he'd been a little too tired to make something from scratch today, but as far as she was concerned, the leftovers they were having were just as good. "I should stay here today."
"You don't want to go back to the university? You got up and got dressed and everything," Clark said.
"Yeah. But there's supposed to be—like—three attacks today, right? I should stay on this end of town, where I can get to Ning more easily if she needs help. I'm still not much help to my students anyway—it was really nice to see them yesterday, and I am starting to remember a little more, but I think I might be better off sifting through my own research and all the basics I'm supposed to already know on a computer here than being distracted anyway. Since you and I share powers, if there's trouble at the university and downtown, we'll still have someone who can heal on both ends, right?"

"That's true..." he nodded. "All right. I'll see if one of the kids doesn't have classes this morning, maybe, to go somewhere near downtown and support you two. And with the rest of us on campus, we can get a group to anywhere in town reasonably quickly."

"Sounds like a plan!" she grinned.

---

Around mid-morning, Blake finally came out of his room. "Morning..."
Amory was on the couch. He sat up and turned around to face his roommate. "Hey, I thought you were gone already! Don't you have classes this morning?"
"Yyyeah...I'm skipping today." He must've just woken up, but he sounded exhausted. "I can't focus on school with..." and he made a vague gesture. "...going on."
"Well, hey, get something to eat at least!" he pointed emphatically toward the kitchen. "Have you looked at your phone yet?"
He started shuffling off that way. "Yeah. I said I'd go downtown, since uh..Gemma and Magus are on campus this morning."

"Hey, seriously—are you okay? You sleep alright?"
"Yeah. Going to 'that place' guarantees sleep, at least. I, uh, guess fighting fused yesterday took more out of me than I thought." He yawned. "Anyway, I really don't feel that bad. I think I just slept too much, you know? Plus, you know, the weather..."

Amory could feel that this wasn't entirely honest, but he wasn't sure if Blake was lying to him, or to himself. "Sure...uh, you want me with you?" he offered.

"Nah. I can keep everyone safe, Rory can tank or knock over basically anything, and Ning can do tons of damage fast with her lightning magic. Between the three of us...I think the other team needs your help more."
"Fair enough." It didn't evaporate his concerns, but at least Blake was thinking about the situation tactically. Anyway, based on his self-described role in any hypothetical fight downtown, he didn't seem intent on taking on more than he could handle right now. Amory would just have to trust his friend.

Battle Vixens! - 116

First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Episode 116: Out of the Bag

It was sort of strange, Marcus thought once he was back to human form. 'Magus' had been running around, fighting, exerting whatever physical energy was apparently required to do magic, and had been hurt pretty bad once or twice too, even if she'd been magically healed of those particular injuries. It made sense for her to be exhausted, and sore, and to just overall feel like garbage. But 'Marcus', on the other hand, was just tired and feeling like garbage, without any of the physical cues that would normally accompany that. The injuries stayed behind with the fox-girl and her hats, but the exhaustion held onto him no matter what form he was in.

He sort of slowly shambled through the apartment complex, got his keys out and clumsily fumbled around to get the right one into the door to his apartment, then shuffled inside with as much of a hurry as he could manage to get to something he could sleep on. By this point, even his bedroom just seemed like it was too far away, and he just flopped over onto the couch, as uncomfortable of a place to sleep as it usually was. Fortunately, Thad had classes and practice for a good bit of the day, so there'd been no risk of running into him. Marcus could just...get up and make his way to the bedroom after a short nap.

The next thing he knew, someone's hands were shoving him in the side fairly hard. He groaned quietly, only barely conscious from even that. "Wake up!" Thad's voice growled angrily as he shoved him again, and this time Marcus groaned a little louder before half-sitting up, rubbing his eyes.

"Yeesh, finally! I thought you were in a coma, man!"

"Uugh..sorry. I've had..um, kinda rough day."
"Really?" Thad didn't sound happy, and now that Marcus's vision was clear enough he could see him glaring down at him with his arms crossed. "Doin' what, huh?"

"Well uh.." He had been thinking about how to explain his general state of exhaustion before, and now out came the one halfway-decent idea he'd had for that. "I-I didn't really wanna tell you, you know uh, until there were some..like actual results, but I've been trying to..exercise more, lately."

"Uh-huh." It didn't look like his roommate was buying that. Shoot, he thought he'd sounded pretty convincing there. "You been skipping classes, man? No one has seen you since this morning! They were askin' me where you were! I was getting ready to call your family, or the police!"

"O-oh uh..you didn't—"

"Of course I tried callin' you first! No answer! Look at your phone," he pointed emphatically, and then waited patiently for Marcus to retrieve his phone and find messages and missed calls asking where he was..not all of which were even from Thad.

He looked up again after that. "Uh..sorry. I guess I was really asleep."

"Yeah." Thad sat down on a nearby chair, not looking quite as angry as before, but he still wasn't happy. "So what is goin' on with you, bro? You been acting weird for days, and now this junk, too."

"Uh—"

"Don't even tell me it's just you 'exercising', man. I know what that's like."

"Well—"

"Pssh, nevermind." He shook his head. "I don't wanna dance around this, so I'll just tell you what I think.

"You been fighting monsters, haven'tcha?"

Marcus's voice completely caught in his throat. He had to be making the worst possible expression for a moment like this, the kind of shock that can only come from someone speaking what's supposed to be a secret they don't know aloud.

Thad didn't look happy to have figured it out; he pulled at his hair and said, "Aaagh, geez, I was hopin' I was wrong. So, what, you're 'Magus', right?"

"I..."
"Oh, stoppit, like I'm gonna tell anyone. I'm better at keeping secrets than you are. I mean, I don't really even care that you didn't want me to know, you know, but if you're acting all weird, and getting exhausted all the time, I can't help but at least try to figure out what's wrong, huh? No wonder I got the feeling you were into something dangerous!"

Marcus couldn't think of a reply to all of that other than, after a moment, letting out an exasperated sigh.

"Yeah, look, I'm sorry for blowin' your secret or whatevs. But like—I couldn't not bring it up once I thought I knew, right? And I'm not telling anyone, 'kay? Don't even mind coverin' for ya if someone asks, like, if I gotta tell them you're sick or whatever."

Marcus leaned forward, burying his head in his hands for a moment. He was still a little too tired, and a little too soon after a rude awakening, to come up with any of the right things to say. Thad didn't seem to think this was a big deal, but from his perspective, this was a disaster. Out of everyone he knew who could've figured out he was playing superhero, even with the condition that they also promised—and kept the promise—to keep his secret, he was hard-pressed to think of anyone worse.

His roommate at least sensed that he was still very upset about this situation. "What's wrong, huh? You still feeling like garbage?"

He turned his head up just enough to look at him, with his hands now supporting it by the cheeks. "Yes. And. Like, dude, do you have any idea how awkward this is for me?"

"Awkward like how?"

"Like—'oooh, Magus is such a total cutie'!" he said in an high-pitched mock-voice.

"C'mon, man, that's not fair—I had no idea that was you."

"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about!" he said, spreading out his arms. I know how you—like girls, and now you know I can turn into one. That like, looks, how you like? Do you know how weird that is?!"

"I guess not. But it's not like I'm gonna hit on you, 'cause I know you! I mean, unless you acted like you wanted me to, which is pretty obviously not how it is, huh?"

"Just...I...ugh."

They sat in an awkward silence for a minute or so, before Thad crossed arms. "Well, maybe we oughta just make it fair then."
"Make—what?" Marcus said, very confused.

"You can pretty much make up whatever spell you wanna, right? An' it just works?"
"Not..really. I mean—I can't really, explain it, but..it has to like...make sense. As a spell, and. What do you even mean?"

"What I mean is, if you don't like that you can be a girl I'd find hot—you know, as a total stranger or whatever—then do that to me and see how I like it. You know, come up with like a transformation spell or somethin', make me catgirl or whatever. Like—temporarily, I mean," he added quickly afterward.

"Uhhh..you want me to try to turn you into a catgirl."
"Sure, why not?" he put out his hands. "For like, half an hour or whatever. If it'll make you feel better."

Marcus had already had the idea before, for a spell to change someone's appearance. He knew that magic could do it, both in the sense that the Giver had turned numerous people across the world into fox-girls, and also...the thing with Emma. Could he make a spell that would do that? Probably. But he couldn't very well cast a spell, as Magus, that would hit him, as Marcus. It would require another person to volunteer to be a target. That was where the idea had stopped before—enough inspiration that he could maybe cook up a spell from it, but without actually coming up with one because there was no point.

And somehow Thad had the same idea—or at least a somewhat similar one. He was volunteering to have Marcus try it out on him...in a very specific way. With this opportunity before him, the rest of the idea for the spell spilled into his brain before he could really stop it. The right words, and some of the right motions—enough that he felt sure he could 'feel out' the rest of it as he went. Of course Magus could manage a 'temporary transformation' spell..although, for some reason, it felt like a willing target would be much easier to use it on than an unwilling one.

Thad's idea was crazy, and stupid. Him turning into a catgirl for thirty minutes didn't compare to Marcus having an entire second identity—a publicly known one at that—which he knew Thad had thought of...romatically, to put it gently...before realizing it was him. But then, he'd come up with it out of a desire to make things less weird between them—despite the idea being so extremely weird itself. At least, maybe it wouldn't hurt to try.

He sighed. There was something about knowing magic, and thinking up spells, and wanting to try them out—he couldn't help himself sometimes. That was the real reason he'd screwed up and tried to teleport instead of just blocking that morning. That was why he'd decided to summon a lava elemental thing and almost hurt someone with it that afternoon. But, even realizing that, he couldn't help himself.

"...Alright, I guess we'll try that."

Marcus took out one of his hats and put it on, standing up at the same time as he changed into a short, cute, blue-haired fox-girl. She didn't feel quite as sore as expected, but wasn't exactly in peak condition either. The spell she had in mind felt particularly..short-range, and walking over to the chair Thad was sitting in felt like more effort than her body wanted to go to. "Uh...stand like..here somewhere," she gestured in front of her, and he shrugged, getting up and coming up in front of her, still enough steps away to be out of her personal space.

A part of what made all of this feel weird, of course, was that when she was Magus, she was a girl. She felt like one from the inside out. Thad was taller than her original form too, but it was strange seeing him tower this high above her. And it didn't help that a small part of her physical reaction to his close proximity and admittedly..overall attractive appearance was a slight elevation in heartrate and a slight warmth in her cheeks. She cursed her body, telling it to shut up—she needed to concentrate—and she drew out her sword, quickly putting together the last of what was needed for this attempt at a spell. Then it was a deep breath, and...

"Exchange your true shape for another..."

The motions for this spell were complex enough to take up more time than the first part of her incantation, and not needing to talk for the latter third or so of them helped her concentrate better on doing them right anyway. There was also an additional component required for this spell that split her focus yet again—she, of course, needed to specify what form her target would take. For this, she pictured a curvy girl with the ears and tail of a cat—a catgirl Marcus would find pretty hot if she were a stranger, and not her roommate.

"...Polymorph!"

Despite all of these complications, she got it all out, and ended with her sword pointed straight forward so that its tip was a half-foot or so away from Thad's center mass.

The bright blue sparks that seemed to be characteristic of her magic gathered where her hand held the sword's hilt, converging into something more closely resembling a sky-blue flame before flowing up along the blade and finally spilling out from its tip, spreading outward to encompass his entire body. Even with the bright blaze completely surrounding him, Magus could somehow make out his silhouette in it as though he were being brightly lit from only behind. In the silhouette, she could see his shape rapidly changing: His height plummeted a head or more downward, his hair fluffing out to voluminous, wild, shoulder-length locks, his frame narrowed and softened into a feminine shape. All the while, she heard his voice go "Whooo~ooo~oo~oaa~aah...!" starting out as his own but rapidly changing to a high, feminine, mid-alto tone. Then there was a soft "Aa~ah!" as the last of the flame flowed across Magus's sword and she saw the silhouette gaining visible curves: Wide hips, an impressive bust. And then one more, rather high and cute, "Wah~!" as two pointy triangles spiked up from the corners of Thad's head and a long, slim tail appeared from behind his...well, decidedly her back now.

As the flame dissipated, Magus took in the full appearance of the catgirl her magic had made: shoulder-length, messy blond hair, an adorable face with Thad's bright green eyes shining out from it, curves to die for. She was still taller than Magus, but only enough that her chin was about at the fox-girl's eye level. Her clothes had changed too, becoming a tight, long-sleeved white shirt with a red sweater and a green tie over it, a black skirt now fluttering around as if the flame changing her a moment ago had been a sharp gust of wind, and black tights below that holding close to some soft, shapely legs. "W-wa~ah!" The first thing Magus saw her actually doing was windmilling her arms, her slim tail whipping around confusedly behind her, as she lost her balance and toppled backwards onto her butt.

"Uh..a-are you okay?" Magus felt a little bad for not trying to catch her—her usual reaction time was good enough to have managed that, but her body still didn't really want to move that much. Thad seemed unhurt; she was just looking down to briefly examine herself, the sweater slipping partway off of her from the motion of the fall. Watching her, somehow..the warmth in the fox-girl's cheeks felt stronger than it had before. After a moment, Thad looked up at her with a small grin.

"Pfft..heheh," she chuckled after that—only it was more like a cute, girlish giggle. "You really don't do nothin' halfway, huh?" She took a moment to pull the sweater back over her shoulders, then fussed with the tie briefly before undoing it and tossing it aside. "Gotta admit, this feels pretty weird. Hey, how d'you stay standing up with a tail, anyhow?"
"Uh..you just...I mean, as far as I can tell you just let the tail do its thing..." Magus held down a hand, and Thad accepted her help getting up, shuffling her feet around briefly before letting go. She seemed to be getting the hang of balancing fairly quickly.

"Sooo? What do you think, huh? Am I total hottie or what?" she grinned.

"You uh..I-I guess so. I mean, you don't really look how...I know you like girls looking, but.."
"But I look hot to you, right?"

"I-I mean, if I was a guy, yeah..?"
"Then it totally worked. Woo~!" she pumped a fist high in the air and jumped with enough energy to make her...assets visibly bounce up and down.

Her landing was not so graceful, and ended with her teetering around briefly. "Wo-whoaa..!" Not wanting her to fall over again, Magus caught her shoulders and helped steady her.

"What'd you do that for?"
"I'unno, it felt fun," she shrugged. "I feel great and I look great. Riight?" She grinned in what was obviously a teasing manner, and Magus realized they were standing rather close at the moment.

The fox-girl took a quick step back, sighing. "I—don't think this worked, dude. This is just even more weird."

"Awwh, don't be like that. How long's this gonna last, anyway?"
"I..don't know," Magus said, shrugging. "I mean—I know it's temporary, but..it feels like how long it lasts, uh, varies. Definitely not more than an hour, I think. And, since I made it happen, I could probably just dispel it..."

"Well—don't do that! I wanna enjoy this while it lasts."

Thad tilted her head. "..What? You givin' me the weirdest look, bro."

"You seem uh—much happier about being a catgirl..I mean uh, a girl in general than uh. I'd ever expect?"
"Well—I dunno, it's just somethin' different. Feels kinda nice, in a weird way," she shrugged. "Guess it helps that I know it'll wear off. You mean you don't enjoy being like that at all?" she gestured at the fox-girl.

"I uh..there's certain things I like about this look, yeah. Like—I'm physically fit. I can actually run and jump and not get tired right away. But, uh, I think I could kinda take or leave the whole 'being stuck as a girl' part..."

"What about the cute ears and tail, then?"

"They're uh..there. They don't bother me or anything, and they help with hearing and balance I guess, but..I guess I'm kinda neutral about that, too."

"Do yooouuu..think my ears and tail are cute?" she asked, flicking her ears up and down in the process.
"I..guess?" Marcus didn't really know how to process her roommate even asking a question like this. It didn't help that the bigger girl's cute face looking down at her expectantly like that was making her feel...weird.

"Well, would you mind rubbing my ears just a little bit?"
"Uh—why?"
"'Cause I wanna know what it feels like! And like you said, I won't look like this for long, riiight?"

"Um..f-fine.." Not entirely sure why she'd agreed to this, Magus reached up her hands and carefully brushed her fingers across the bright-colored fluff on top of Thad's ears.

Her response was...purring. An actual, very feline sounding, low rumbling came from the catgirl's throat, and her face reddened slightly with a blush at, perhaps, embarrassment from making such a sound—but, at the same time, she was grinning wide. After a moment, Marcus felt too embarrassed herself to continue, and dropped her hands back. "Aah, brah, that feels great!"
"R-really?"
"Yeah! Lemme show ya!"
"Wait—!"

Before she could get an objection out, the catgirl had reached her small, delicate hands down and placed her fingers near the bases of Magus's ears. That sensation proved about as stimulating as she imagined someone directly tickling her spine might, making her gasp slightly, and it didn't get any less so as Thad's fingers slid all the way down to the tips of the ears before lifting up and starting back at the bases all over again.

After that intake of breath, the fox-girl could initially only manage an embarrassed "M-mnnnngh.." Once she was past the shock of how sensitive all that ear-fur seemed to be, there was something distressingly pleasing about the feeling of someone's fingers gently stroking across them. It certainly didn't...hurt that enjoyment that her view was mostly taken up by the catgirl's cute grin on a blushing face and, below that, her impressive bust outlined under the tight shirt.

After a moment, she mercifully stopped, lifting her hands back off of Marcus's ears and bringing them up to cross under her chest. "Sorry, heheh," she giggled softly. "Guess I got a li'l bit carried away, there. You did look kinda like you were enjoying it, though?"

"D-did you seriously like it that much?" she asked once she had the composure back to speak again.

"Yeah! Ahh, man, I'm starting to feel like I'm gonna kinda miss it now." The small frown she made from thinking this aloud wasn't any less cute than her smile.

"I-I guess if I was able to do that spell once, I'm sure I..can do it again..."

"You wouldn't mind? I mean, it wouldn't be too weird or nothin'?"
Magus felt kind of like she was getting a headache, and pinched the top of her nose. "It's...definitely too weird either way, so..like, whatever." She sighed tiredly, her body seeming to finally remember that it had already been exhausted today, and a transformation spell's stamina cost wasn't exactly cheap.

"I've, gotta sit down, dude..." She stumbled back and sat on the couch again. "Casting spells is..super tiring, even more the bigger the effect."
"Ah! Man, I didn't even think about that!" The catgirl slid herself around next to Magus—right next to her—seemingly without it occurring to her to think about how close she was. "Sorry 'bout that." And she carelessly put her arm up across the fox-girl's shoulders in a hug, too.
"Uhm, i-it's okay, I guess.." Marcus's face was almost burning from this gesture, but she couldn't bring herself to object to it, either. It really felt like Thad somehow hadn't thought anything of the closeness or the hug, and..she couldn't quite help enjoying it a little bit, anyway.
"Hey, I know! I'll order us some grub," she offered. "Y'know—once this stuff wears off and all."
"Uh..s-sure, thanks." Acting on some strange impulse, Magus slid her hand around the catgirl's waist experimentally, aiming to return the side-hug. Thad's reaction was another soft, cute giggle, and turning her head to look down in the fox-girl's face with a slightly-blushing grin.

"Are you suuure you don't wanna feel my ears again?" she offered. "Y'know, limited time offer and all."
"Uh..th-that's okay. Y-you can...touch mine again, if you really want to..." Why was she saying that?!
"Heheh, sweet~."

Thad took her up on the offer right away—before she had any chance to consider rescinding it—and set about not only gently rubbing her ears near the base again, but occasionally running a hand across the part of her hair not covered by her hat. It was hard to describe, but the feeling was somehow..very relaxing. Magus let out a soft "Mmmh" after a moment, feeling drowsy all of a sudden, and then drifted through a strangely pleased haze for a short while before falling asleep again.

Battle Vixens! - 115

First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

Episode 115: Trauma

"He just...asked what my opinion was. Like—uh—of you?" After getting a text from Amory that the coast was clear, Emma had made her way to his apartment. In a way, it was kind of good to have Blake here, too, if only as a passive observer with a laptop between him and the rest of the world. He was..still catching up on homework, apparently. "I uh..wh-what I answered with was kinda embarrassing, and I can't remember it exactly anyway. But it was good! Um, very—very positive."
"And after that?" Amory asked.
"He got...he was really...quiet for a minute. And then he said something about how...he's been trying to trust you more, and it's really hard to be a parent, and...uh, s-something about not wanting to pass down his own trauma."

"That's uh..different."
"He left off after um, basically wishing us the best?"

"Yeah..he told me, 'you be good to Emma. She's a keeper.' Just before getting in his car and driving back home," Amory said. "Sooo...I guess that's a success!"

"Still a little weird," Blake interjected. "He basically interrogated me for like two hours and then nodded and said, 'you're okay'. And we've barely talked since."

"Maybe he's just...trying not to be as suspicious in the first place?" Emma said. "Or...um, he could be saving the interrogation for later."
"Yeah, like if you two get any more serious." He shook his head, resuming his work.

"What um...do you know what he meant about 'trauma', though? I mean—I know you lost your mom or something..."
Amory nodded. "Yeah. I guess I should tell Blake about this too, huh. You remember the other night, when you asked if we'd ever suddenly understood something about someone that caused a total change in how we saw them?"

"Oh, y-yeah. You said you had..with him," she nodded.
"Uh-huh. Pretty much, it's like this...

"All my life, I felt like he was hovering over me, watching me every single second. Telling me to be careful about every tiny little thing, wouldn't let me do anything or hang out with anyone he thought was even slightly 'risky'. So my senior year in high school, all I wanted to do was get out from under him. I was gonna go to a college way out on the other side of the country, or out in Europe somewhere, where he'd have to take a plane to get to me. He wanted me to go to a college like five minutes' drive away, and get on the fast track to a medical license. I felt like he was just trying to control me, like I was supposed to be his little puppet.

"We got into this huge fight. I dunno if I've ever been so angry in my entire life. I can't remember half of what I yelled, and I don't think I really even meant half of it. But then, there was something I said—I think it was about mom—and he just…broke. Right in front of me, my dad, who I've known my whole life to be this cheerful, strong, super stubborn man, just like…cracked and fell apart. I remember what he said when it happened, it was...'I just want to keep you safe.' And it was quiet, like a whisper I could only hear because I'd shut up completely too when I saw that. He broke out into tears, and when he'd stopped sobbing enough to talk, that's when he told me what really happened to my mom. He didn't really stop crying the whole time, and neither did I. In the end, I wound up here because we compromised. We both liked this school, it's not too close and not too far, you know..more, normal stuff."

"So, you didn't know what happened to her until then?"

Amory shrugged. "I mean..I knew she'd..died, once I was smart enough to know what death was. But he always avoided the subject when I asked about her. What she was like, or what had really happened. I felt like he didn't think I was 'ready'."

---

Ning parked her car and got out, walking up to the school to pick up her little girl. It was so much easier now to literally pick Nadia up and spin her around laughing, then pull her into a brief, tight hug before setting her down again to walk alongside her, back to the car to go home.

While they walked, holding hands, Ning had a brief realization of the obvious. Her body, as it was now, came with super strength. She was more than strong enough to crush a normal human adult with a hug, much less a young girl like her granddaughter. And yet—it was so easy to not do that; she had such fine control over her own strength that it was effortless. It was a good thing, for sure, and a stark contrast to her initial level of control when it came to lightning. Even now, with her powers 'rebalanced' and her body shifted to what she considered a more ideal look, she could occasionally feel small sparks flying off of herself when she was stressed or worried. Nothing more than the equivalent of a little static from rubbing one's feet on across a carpet, but plenty to show that she still wasn't one hundred percent in control of that part of her powers, and perhaps she never would be.

On the drive home, she considered: She had the benefit of experience now, but raising a child the first time around had been much easier because she hadn't had to do it alone. There were all kinds of new concerns when it came to raising Nadia now, especially with her own position as a well-known "superhero". She would have no choice to be protective at times...but that was true of any parent. If she could just manage a level of self-control when it came to that urge to protect her little girl that rivaled the control she felt over her own strength...or honestly, even just the level of 'not fatally electrocuting people by accident with her powers'...that would be enough.

It was encouraging to know that, for her age, Nadia was already quite a smart and capable girl. She'd be all right.

---

Amory continued, "He said that my mom was the one and only love of his life, and she ruined romance with anyone else for him—which is why he never even dated anyone when I was growing up. She was smart, kind, capable...he said, 'she was my heart, and when I lost her, I had to spend a long time growing myself a new one.' Or..something like that. And what she'd died of, well, it was just cancer.

"I mean—not that fatal cancer is ever just cancer, but...you know. Lots of people, die from that. I was...maybe one or two years old when she got it. Or, well—that's when they found it. Maybe she had it before I was even born. Anyway, he's a surgeon, and he'd saved people in a situation just like hers dozens of times. He cut it out of her himself—the main mass, at least. And they did chemo, they did everything they could. They fought it together, tooth and nail, for over a year. But it just wasn't enough. The caught it too late, or maybe it was just so bad that it wouldn't have even mattered how early they caught it. Somewhere near the end, she made him promise that he'd take good care of me.

"So, that was why. He'd never wanted to control me in the first place. But he'd loved her, and he loved me, and he'd made a promise. He'd just..misunderstood what it was he'd promised to do. I think he realized that, then. He promised he'd try to trust me more. So, I guess he's still..trying to make good on that promise."

He took a deep breath and let it out before continuing. "I thought about the look he used to make, when I asked him about my mom all those times before. I'd thought it was—I dunno, like he was annoyed or frustrated or even angry at me for bringing her up. But right then, when he told me what had really happened, I finally got what that look meant. He was just...sad. It hurt him too much to even bring it up, to talk about it."

Emma couldn't really think of anything to say to all of that; in fact her brain was mostly busy processing all of it against the way Emmett had behaved once he'd been alone with her for a few minutes. It did make slightly more sense, she thought...except for, maybe, the part where he hadn't called her out on lying to him.

"Uh..hey," Amory said, finally breaking the silence. "This is, kinda a change of subject, but you know...last night, the big meeting thing..there were some people who wanted to meet 'Gemma' if possible. Like, show you their powers and stuff?"
"Hmn?" she tilted her head slightly, then quickly nodded. "Oh, I knew about that."
"Prism 'thought about it' while we were her," Blake added.

---

After returning to the VI headquarters, Simon started toward the PR office to start doing the job he was largely being paid for. But he happened to glance inside one of the lounges on his way and see something that immediately drew him inside: Cynthia was in there, alone. She was sitting on one of the couches with his gift, busily scribbling away at a sketch. He just had to know what she was drawing, so he sneaked quietly in to get a glance over her shoulder. It wasn't a very successful attempt at stealth, of course—fox ears and all. But she didn't stop working at it as he approached, which he considered a win.

The picture seemed to be mostly complete; it was a somber, moody sort of piece. There was a dark cave with only the faintest flicker of light coming in, and a clearly present but slightly blurry and indistinct human figure crouching terrified in its darkest corner. There were broken-off bones and patches of torn clothes and fur scattered around in some of the places the light reached. It was like the cave belonged to some great monster, but the monster was away just now—and yet its victim, huddling in the corner of the cave, was still too terrified to flee, or knew full well they would be tracked down even if they tried.

After he'd watched her continue to fill in the edges of the picture with pencil for a minute or so, she turned her head back. "Whad'you think, huh?"
"I knew you were talented," he said with a big grin. "You only just drew that today, and look at the shading, the perspective, the figure...all the emotion it conveys! It's not perfect, of course, but I could easily see a painted version, or maybe a little digital refinement, resulting in a piece worthy of collectors."

"Mmh. This ain't really all that original...I'm just copyin' it from memory."
"Oh? From where?"
"My old sketchbook."

"What happened to..." Simon trailed off, remembering her background slightly too late to stop his mouth moving. He knew what had happened—it had burned down, along with the rest of her house.

Or at least, he thought he knew. She said: "Last time I saw it, my dad found this sketch. He got angry. Real angry. Took a lighter to the whole thing, and laughed at me the whole time it was burnin' up.

"...Same man who kept my drawings from elementary school on the fridge, and used to brag 'bout how his little girl was gonna be a famous artist some day. He'd come home drunk or high, and real angry either way, and beat me with his fists until I started bleedin'. Then he'd finally notice I was hurt and just—stop, an' start cryin' his eyes out and sayin' how sorry he was. Tryin' to bandage up the wounds with his hands still clumsy from whatever he'd screwed himself up with, and then tuck me into bed like he used to, like he was still a good dad an' all."

"Er..." This sudden outpouring of distressing information had come out of her flatly, with very little emotion, which was even more worrying than if she'd been crying about it. This was a very rare case where Simon had no idea how to respond.
"Sorry, guess that's oversharing."

"Y..you know." He came around to sit on the far side of the couch from her. "I've always seen art as a playground. I've got loads of talent, and have built up a ton technical skill, but I always just want to make something unusual or interesting—or whatever I think will sell. But among my peers, I've met plenty who need it, for something else entirely. Whenever they go and tell me why, and it's something like what you just told me...I never really know what to say. I've tried saying 'well, at least you're past it now', and I either get glares, or silent head-shaking, or the most worrying laughter I've ever heard. Or I'll say, 'hey, at least you got good art out of it,' and that gets me the angriest glares. I'm certain giving expression to those kinds of memories is super important, but there are people trained to know what to say. Or when to say nothing at all, for that matter, and..I'm not one of 'em." He shrugged.

Cynthia fixed him with a look throughout this, and then for a moment afterward, then said: "'I'm sorry you went through that.'"
"Hmn?"

"That's all you gotta say. At least, far as I'm concerned."

"Huh." He nodded. "Well, then, I certainly am. Wish nobody did."

Simon had work to get to still, but didn't want to leave her off on an awkward note like this. After mentally grasping for a second or two, he said, "You know—well, you've probably noticed. I've been sort of trying 'Phoenix' on for you as a 'superhero name'. I didn't come up with it, but I liked it ever since I first heard it. But, I, haven't really asked you for your opinion about that. I can stop right away, if you don't like it."

"Hmm. Pheonix, huh? Big fiery bird that dies, and comes back brighter and stronger from the ashes," she recited in a faux-dramatic tone.

"Right."

"...Nah, I kinda like it. Just hope I can live up to that whole idea."

"I'm confident you can," Simon said, hopping up onto his feet. He nearly ran into Rowan on his way out of the room. "Ah—'scuze me, off to work!"

---

Clark started the car. "That went well overall, didn't it?"
"Yeah. Not bad. I think we could even stand to talk to each other again sometime," Rory said.

"He seemed friendlier and less intense than last time," Clark continued. "Honestly, I think he is a pretty good father."

"...I don't know about that. But then, I don't really remember."
"He wants the best for you, I think. It's just that he wasn't ready back then, maybe, to accept that you could know better than him what 'the best' is. Maybe you were both so used to butting heads that neither of you would ever be willing to admit the other one was right. But time heals all wounds, right?"

"Maybe. Time and memory loss."

They drove quietly for a few minutes. Then he said: "I can't help but think about Tobias."
"Who?"
"The puppeteer?"
"Oh." This single, short syllable was dripping with disgust.

"He turned out that way, at least partially, because he wanted...control. Control that his father would never relinquish to him. I suppose freedom, too. He was simultaneously spoiled rotten, and boxed in."
"So what?" she was, understandably, not particularly sympathetic to her murderer's former plight.

"I just..hope I turn out to be a better father than that."

"You think she's any less to blame? Just because of her upbringing?"
"No, no.." Clark shook his head slowly. "A person like that is always responsible for her own actions. But, perhaps he still deserves some blame for the way things turned out...and paid for it with the loss of his son."

Rory crossed her arms. "I'd say that's a pretty harsh punishment, but...I'm really not feeling like it was right now.

"Anyway—you've got nothing to worry about. If anything, I'm sure I'll be the one who winds up handling all the discipline. You'll be the nice, permissive one who bakes cookies for 'em and plays games with 'em."

"You don't think I'm capable of handing out punishment?" Clark said.

"Hahah, are you kidding? I bet you take one look in our little boy's or girl's eyes after saying 'no dessert for a week' and it starts raining brownies and ice cream!"

"Hmph."
"Hey, don't look so upset about it. You're kind," she said. "It's what I love about you."